Frostbite
by SunflowerAquarius
Summary: Supposedly meek Fuyumi had enough of watching Endeavor beat their mother and terrorize her siblings. She'd had enough of being ignored and deemed a failure. Fuyumi had enough. Shouto awakening his quirk had been the straw that broke the camel's back. Todoroki Fuyumi says no to her father. Nothing was ever the same.
1. Hoarfrost

"Enji, please! He's only a child," their mother pleaded, from where she crouched down, folding five-year-old Shouto into her embrace. Enji scowled, taking a step forward and encroaching on Rei's space and grabbing her wrist in his tight grip and attempted to yank her away from the sobbing child.

To their mother's credit, she only flinched a little bit when he wrenched her hands off their son and threw her in the other direction. Her back hit the wall with a _thud_ and she fell onto the hardwood on her butt. Her vision swam for a moment before she refocused, silver lining her eyes as unshed tears filled them as she stared at her husband.

"Mommy!" little Shouto cried, trying to run to her side in vain before his path was cut off by the hulking man in the room. He leveled the boy a glare hot enough to stop him in his tracks. Shouto whimpered unconsciously, taking a step back.

He turned his attention back to their mother with an ugly look on his face. "I will do what I want, Rei. It would do you well to remember who you speak to," their father — _He's_ Endeavor, _not our father_ , Touya had said once with an ugly sneer that, to Fuyumi's abject horror, made him look _exactly_ like Endeavor — snarled. Poor baby Shouto was crying even harder now, fear in his dichromatic eyes as they flicked to Father to Mom and back again.

Today was supposed to be a day of celebration for him. After all, it's not every day that you awaken your quirk for the first time. Everyone was supposed to be _happy_.

Fuyumi stood in the foyer, frozen to her spot as she watched the scene unfold in the living room with bated breath. Her hands gripped the door-knob hardly noticing at all when her quirk began frosting over the polished brass, her hoarfrost creeping from her clenched fingertips as she stood. When she had come home from the library she had expected dead silence, maybe some giggling from Shouto, but not _this_.

She thanked God that Touya had to go pick up Natsuo from school and was out of the house so that neither of them could get involved and make the situation worse than it already was.

It was still pretty _bad_ though.

Rei stood up again, a determined look on her face under the copious amounts of fear and she stalked to Endeavor. "Enji, don't forget that Shouto is my child too!" She exclaimed, showing more backbone _now_ than Fuyumi had ever seen in the past few years. A foreign emotion rose up into her chest, threatening to burst with its intensity, a mix of pride and fear. Endeavor hated disobedience. It didn't matter where it came from, their father hated being challenged almost as much as he hated being Number Two.

Rei stopped in front of Endeavor, pointing her finger at him as anger colored her cheekbones a dusty red color. "And I will not allow you to t—"

Everything else happened so fast, Fuyumi was left reeling in the aftermath. All she saw was their father raising his large palm and before she knew it, her mother was on the ground again, this time nursing a quickly purpling face. Rei let out a wounded yelp as she crashed to the ground, unable to stop the freight train that was Todoroki Enji when he was determined.

"Mommy!" Shouto cried, his voice rising in pitch as he watched their mother get so cruelly handled.

Having seen enough, her feet moved of their own accord, down the foyer and rushing over to their mother's side as she cradled her rapidly bruising cheekbone in her hands, her quiet sobs wracking her body. Fuyumi's cold hands held their mother and she stared up at their father who, like usual, ignored her.

For some reason, that grated on her more than usual.

"Shouto!" he barked, his temper bubbling over. "It is time to begin your tra—"

Before Fuyumi could even think about it, her mouth had formed the word. "No."

Dead silence.

Fuyumi desperately wanted to take the words back into her mouth and stay _quiet_ but the damage was already done. For once, she had her father's full attention on her, his burning gaze directly on her.

"What did you say?" he says, his voice low with warning. Fuyumi noticed dimly that his flaming facial hair had started up in his ire, raising the temperature of the room several degrees. Still, she held her ground in the face of her father, a stubborn set in her jaw.

Todoroki Fuyumi was all of eleven years old, thirty-six kilograms soaking wet, and less than a hundred-forty centimeters tall and she said no to Endeavor. _I said no to_ Father _,_ she realized belatedly, her heart climbing into her throat.

"I, uh, I said no," she repeated shakily, standing up from her mother's side and facing the person that most frequented her nightmares. Shouto glued himself to her side, burying his face into her leg. She gently nudged him behind her and out of their father's line of sight. "Shouto… Shouto is too young to be training with you," she says, forcing strength into her words as she stared their father right in his piercing green eyes. "He deserves to… to be a kid. Not to, uh, be your legacy," she finished awkwardly, her heart racing in her chest because never, has she _ever_ spoke to her father like that.

"Fuyumi, get out of my way," he bites out, nearing the end of his rope. His mustache burned brighter and hotter but Fuyumi paid him no mind.

"No," she says again, planting her feet into the ground solidly. She is made dimly aware of the front door opening by Natsuo's quiet rambling and Touya's quiet footsteps. They both silence themselves in the genkan, but Fuyumi redirects her attention to her father who took a threatening step forward.

"Fuyumi, I will not tell you again," he threatens, getting in her face close enough for the fire on his face to get uncomfortably close to her skin Part of her brain is roaring, _screaming_ at her to do what he says. It would be much, much easier to just move out of the way. But, she can't. Not when she can still _feel_ Shouto trembling against her in fear, his crying muffled against her. No. If she moves out of the way now, she would fail her otouto. She'd never forgive herself.

" _No_ ," she repeats evenly, astounded by the strength of her quiet voice. She stares him dead in the eyes in a show of bravery that she never thought herself capable and clenched her teeth, ready for the worst.

She didn't have to wait very long.

Suddenly, Endeavor was moving to hit her across the face like he'd done with mother and Fuyumi didn't think. In her panic and anger, her quirk flared out as she screamed, all of her anguish and panic and fury releasing in one, untrained shot.

Endeavor's vision was filled with white as her quirk, now released from her tight control, climbed up his arms and onto his torso, stopping his movement with its intensity. When she regained control of herself, she was shocked and a little terrified of the scene before her. Their father, the great Endeavor, only second to All Might, was caught in her quirk.

He was _frozen_.

From his feet on the cracking wood to the top of his neck and everywhere in between, her ice covered him, stopping him from moving the slightest bit, the ice dropping the temperature in the room _several_ degrees.

Endeavor looked _furious_. "RELEASE ME NOW!" he bellowed, the veins on his forehead standing at attention. Fuyumi thought she had known fear before when she watched her mother become despondent and retreat into herself due to her treatment by their father. She thought she knew fear when Touya kept coming to her with burns upon burns upon _burns_ after his daily 'training sessions' with their father and his skin was peeling and blistering and it was all Fuyumi could do to slather the burn salve onto his scorched limbs and bandage them. She thought she knew fear when she came home today and saw their father's sights set on her baby-brother and she had stepped in to defend her family from the monster who wore the face of her father.

She was wrong.

Panic tore through her and hot tears fell onto her cheeks as she watched her father struggle to get out of the hold of her quirk and she realized _He can't burn himself out_.

Fuyumi had known that she had a decently powerful quirk. It was from her mother's side, the ice she could produce from her fingertips, and it was enough that Todoroki Enji deemed her a failure and ignored her from the moment it had been discovered. It was… easier to be ignored, she'd supposed. If she wasn't, she would be subject to his training and judging by how badly injured Touya had come to her every other night, it was _bad_.

Fuyumi knew her quirk was colder and more powerful than her mother's. She just wasn't aware of just _how much_ colder and more powerful it was. She had trapped _Endeavor_ in her quirk, something very, very few people could say and judging by his murderous expression, he wasn't happy.

"FUYUMI RELEASE ME THIS INSTANT!" All of her bravado evaporated as she stared at her handy-work, fear like none she'd ever felt before erupting in the pit of her stomach because _I'm not sure I know_ how _to release it._

"Holy shit, 'Yumi," she heard from the entrance to the genkan. Touya looked both impressed and horrified at their father's predicament, his grip on Natsuo's hand slacking a little. He leaned down and whispered something in Natsuo's ear that had the smaller boy running for the stairs before Fuyumi could say anything.

"Fuyumi." The girl in question looked down to their mother whose pale cheekbone was purple with the huge bruise with tear-filled eyes. "Relax from your stomach and exhale," she instructed quietly, with more lucidity than she'd shown in months. Trembling, Fuyumi did as she said, hyperventilating the entire time.

 _What happens when he gets free?_ she pondered as she watched her ice melt into nothing as it _evaporated_. _Easy,_ she realized, feeling Endeavor's burning gaze on her again.

 _He kills me_.

Not wanting to die at the tender age of eleven and a half, Fuyumi did the one thing she could think of.

She ran.

Fuyumi ran out of the living room, back through the foyer, and had wrenched the door open before anyone could register her movements. The shouting was cut off by her slamming the door and taking off down the streets, her breaths shaky from panic and exertion as she sprinted full-force down the streets of Musutafu, dodging concerned pedestrians with keen reflexes as she tried to put as much distance between that _man_ and her as humanly possible so that he didn't kill her.

Fuyumi ran and ran and ran until she couldn't run anymore and she collapsed in the middle of a park near Natsuo's school, devoid of any children, surprisingly. She walked along the grass, the blades tickling her bare feet until she reached a small swing near the west end of the small park and began swinging.

Then, and only then did Fuyumi allow herself to cry.

A keening whine forced its way out of her throat and it was over for her. Great, shuddering sobs wracked her small frame as she cried for her mother, for her brothers, and for herself, her hands gripping the chains holding the swing aloft. Todoroki Fuyumi, the only daughter of the great hero Endeavor, stayed on that swing for a while. Maybe it was a few minutes, maybe it was a few days. Time melded together as she cried herself out on that swing.

It was a long time until she stopped crying, but when she did, she made a promise to herself.

 _Never again will I allow him to make me feel so small,_ she decided once dusk had settled over the park and began coloring her world the shades of sunset. _I_ will _protect my family, even if that means from Fa— Endeavor_ , she corrected herself in her mind, scowling. He didn't deserve that title. Not yet at least.

However, the only way to protect them would be to become more powerful and how could she do that with no training? She pursed her lips and narrowed her puffy eyes at her feet as they hovered over the mulch of the playground. Then, it hit her.

What better way could there be to protect her family than to become a _hero_? The idea caused some of the ache in her heart to go away as she rolled it around in her mind. _That way I can train my quirk and my body so I can be strong enough to beat him_. Besides, it's not like being a pro-hero wasn't in her blood.

And it was decided.

There, on that swing-set, as the sun set below the horizon, hours after the eleven-year-old girl had frozen her terrifying father with her quirk, Todoroki Fuyumi made a decision that would change the trajectory of both her life and the life of her family.

With that new goal in mind to bolster her courage and give her strength, she peeled herself off of the swingset and made the walk home, crushing the fear that had begun building in her chest down low. _There's no space for fear anymore_ , she thought, squaring her shoulders as she walked barefoot down the rapidly dimming street.

By the time she made it back to the quiet estate, Fuyumi had a rough plan in her head on how exactly she was going to protect her family and that plan started with going to UA in three years.

 _I have three years to prepare for the UA entrance exam_ , she thought, her brow furrowing. _It's going to be a lot, but I_ know _I can do it._

On that day, Todoroki Fuyumi decided she was going to become a Pro-Hero.

And no one, _no one_ , was going to stop her.

* * *

 **A/N:** Yeah, I was tired of the lack of good fics about the Todoroki fam so I thought I'd whip this up. Hopefully y'all liked it, I certainly enjoyed writing it. I tried to write their characters accurately so if they're not spot on, I tried ;-;. This was my first BNHA fanfic so forgive me for any OOC stuff. I wrote this the same day I posted it so forgive any spelling mistakes. Let me know if you guys want me to keep going with the Hoarfrost universe. Alright, thanks for reading!


	2. Inferno

When Fuyumi opened the front door to her eerily quiet house, she wasn't sure what she expected. Maybe Endeavor standing in the foyer, waiting with his fists on fire, ready to dole out the punishment she probably deserved. Maybe her twin brother Touya ready to sneak out, telling her that she should run too for fear of being seen by the hulking brute at the head of the family. She certainly wasn't expecting this.

Fuyumi pushed open the front door and stepped into the threshold of the house to find Todoroki Rei standing by the door, looking more present than before. Her breath caught in her throat, not having predicted her mother, her painfully complacent and wounded mother, waiting up for her right by the front door. She looked ghostly pale, even with the purple bruise on her delicate cheekbone and Fuyumi felt a surge of anger at its presence. Fuyumi steadied herself and placed a stony expression on her face in lieu of the startled one from a few seconds prior.

"He left for his office in town," her mother murmured, examining her only daughter with an unreadable look on her face. Relief went through her body like warm water, relaxing her when she heard the words.

 _He's gone for the night_.

"Oh, alright," she replied awkwardly, unsure of what to do now that He wasn't a threat for now. "Where, uh, where is everyone else?"

Rei walked through the foyer into the kitchen and Fuyumi followed, padding through the quiet house. Her mother went to the stove and reached down into the cabinets below it to pull out a tea kettle. Rei turned on the faucet behind her and began filling up the kettle with water. Fuyumi sat down at the kitchen table, her hands clasped in front of her to stop their fidgeting.

"Shouto and Natsuo went to bed a few hours ago. Touya is probably still up waiting for you."

Fuyumi nodded, looking at her hands. For a few minutes, the only sounds to be heard in the Todoroki household was the bubbling of the hot water in the kettle and Rei's movements around the kitchen as she gathered the necessary ingredients to make tea. Unable to take the lengthy silences for very long, Fuyumi couldn't take it and broke.

"About today," she started, clenching her hands tightly to keep herself in control. "I—"

"It's not your fault," her mother says quietly before taking a deep breath. "You should have never had to step in like that and it is my responsibility as your mother to protect you and I didn't." Rei focuses on her daughter and closes the distance between them, her words like a balm to Fuyumi. "I'm so, so sorry, my darling girl." Rei wraps her arms around her daughter in a way she hadn't since she was small and Fuyumi almost started crying again.

"Mom, it's not your fault either!" she whispered fiercely as she felt her mother's slight shoulders begin to shake with silent tears. "He's a _monster_ ," Fuyumi hissed, anger and dejection and misery coloring her tone. "He shouldn't be hitting you or Touya or being mean to Natsuo and Shouto or…" she paused, searching for the word she had learned about in school. "He shouldn't be abusing us, Mom."

The girl was only answered with more sobs as tears stained her bright blue shirt. "Don't worry, I'm going to help make it better. I'm going to protect you," Fuyumi declared, patting her mother's back reassuringly.

Her white head snapped up and her red-rimmed eyes searched her daughter's face, frightened. "No, child, you mustn't challenge him or else he'll—"

"Mom, I'm going to _protect_ us," she states, a fire in her eyes that reminds Rei eerily of her husband. "I'm going to become a hero, but not like dad. One that actually helps people out of the goodness of their hearts, not to win some stupid rank. Then, I can save us."

Rei laughed humorlessly, clutching her daughter's face in her cold hands. "I should be protecting you. I've done such a poor job at it as of late…"

"We'll protect each other, alright?" Fuyumi promised, searching her mother's grey eyes for anything and finding something akin to hope in them.

"Alright," Rei agrees, nodding. "But if things get out of hand like that again, I do _not_ want you getting in the middle of it." For a moment, Rei sounds more like the woman Fuyumi remembers from her earlier years than ever before. "If I tell you to stop it, you stop, no ifs, ands, or buts, do you hear me?"

"Yes, ma'am," she says, listening to the tone that told her that there was no room for argument.

They both jumped at the sudden hissing of the kettle, their hearts racing. It's sad, Fuyumi thinks, that she and her mother jump so horribly at sudden noises because of Endeavor's continuous awful treatment of them. _Not for much longer_. When mother and daughter placed the sound, they relaxed into each other, laughing lightly. "Now," Rei says, releasing Fuyumi from her hold and stroking her hair with a grin on her face, fragile as glass. "Black tea is still your favorite, right?"

Fuyumi's answering smile was small and tentative, but just as warm and genuine.

—

When Fuyumi reached the top of the landing after drinking tea and talking to her mother for longer than she ever had before, a hand grips her upper arm and hauls her into another room, slamming the door shut behind her.

Before she even had the chance to be scared, she sees Touya looking equal parts furious and proud as he studies her, turning her around and turning her arms in his hands to check for bruises or burns.

"Did he hurt you? I swear to God if he did, I'll—"

"He's gone," Fuyumi says in a placating manner to stop her excitable aniki from committing patricide. "He's at his office in town according to Mom and won't be back until tomorrow afternoon."

Touya stops, his green eyes less frantic and angry and much more relieved. "Good." He sighs deeply and walks over to his bed, flopping down on it and staring at the ceiling from his back. Following suit, Fuyumi sits down as well with a bit more grace and they sit there, basking in the comfortable silence, each waiting for the other to break it.

Touya does first. "Where'd you go?" he asks, shifting a little on the bed. Fuyumi shrugs.

"Out."

Touya laughs and flicks her in the arm. "Oi, quit with the vague answers, you ass," he snorts. His good nature fades a little bit and he sobers up. "The park?" he asks, referencing the place they used to go whenever being at home become too much.

Fuyumi nods, looking down at her clasped hands. "I didn't think about it. I just.. _ran_ ," she says. "I ended up there." She looked up from her hands and right at Touya. "What happened when I left?"

He grimaces, reaching a hand up to rub his face. "The Old Man fucking _lost_ it. Started screaming and yelling," he replies with a little bit more mirth than probably healthy. "Threw a whole tantrum. I think he was surprised at how strong you were, 'Yumi," Touya adds, looking at her. "You literally froze him in his _tracks_. That's impressive."

Fuyumi laughs humorlessly. "I bet he didn't expect his failure of a daughter to do that." Touya frowns.

"You're not a failure, he's just a fucking asshole," Touya swears, a furrow appearing in his brow. Fuyumi stays quiet, not wanting to respond. Touya knows that the neglect that Endeavor doles out to his more icily-inclined siblings is a sore subject, particularly for Fuyumi. Sometimes, he wishes that _he_ could be ignored too for once, just long enough for his body to stop using itself as kindling everytime he uses his quirk. But you can't always get what you want. "So, what now?" he asks, changing the subject a little. "I mean, you have to deal with him tomorrow when he comes back from his bitch-fit."

Fuyumi sighs, flopping back onto the bed with him, forcing a couple chuckles out of him, "I know, I just… I'm working on it, alright?" He nods, not pressing for more for which she's grateful. Still, she likes to run things by her twin. Fuyumi sits up and leans against the headboard. "Touya," she starts, not entirely sure how to begin this conversation.

He sits up, sensing the change in her tone. "Yeah?"

"Um… Do you think I would, uh, make a good hero?" she asks, her mouth tripping over itself in the rush of words she pushed out. Touya's red eyebrows disappeared into his hairline and Fuyumi wanted to disappear. Her question was stupid, there's no way Touya would endorse her idiotic fanta—

"Yeah," he answers suddenly, cutting off her negative thoughts. "I do."

Fuyumi blinked owlishly at him. "Really?"

"Well _yeah_ ," he says, a small smirk on his face. "You have a good heart, a brilliant mind, and a powerful quirk. That's kinda all you need."

 _Do not cry, do not cry_ , Fuyumi inwardly scolds herself, trying her best not to tear up at his encouraging words, but this is _Touya_ , if anyone would not judge her, it'd be him. She threw her wiry arms around her twin, hugging him tightly to her. He responded in kind by hugging her back and patting her shoulder blades lightly, if not a little mechanically.

"You trying to become a pro-hero?" he guesses. She nods against his shirt, surreptitiously trying to wipe away all evidence of her tears. "You know the Old Man isn't going to—"

"I know," she interrupts, clearing her throat and pulling away gingerly. "But I'm _going_ to do it, Touya, I am," she says with Todoroki-brand determination lighting up her silver eyes. Touya looks a little taken aback at his twin's resemblance to their fa— _Endeavor_ , he corrects inwardly. With that look on her face, she looks like Endeavor. "I want to be able to protect you guys."

"You will," he reassures, grinning at her. "You'll be better than him, I know it," he says, and for the first time in a while, Fuyumi beams at him. "What's the first phase of your grand plan?"

She sets her shoulders back and laughs a little breathlessly. "Getting into UA."

" _UA_?" Touya repeats incredulously and for good reason. That school had one of the _best_ hero courses in the _world_. All of the greats went there.

 _Even Endeavor_.

"Yeah, I know it's a long-shot but—"

"I'll help you every step of the way, 'Yumi." Touya is the one to initiate the hug this time, pride welling up in his chest. His twin was going to be a _Pro-Hero_. She folded into his embrace, sighing happily.

"Good," she mumbles into his chest. "It would be a lot harder to convince you to do this with me if you weren't."

Touya freezes, his eyes widening at his sister's words. "Wait, wait, wait. You want me to become a hero _with you_?" he whispers, wonder in his eyes.

"I wouldn't have it any other way, aniki."

"But my quirk," he starts, looking down at the ground, his cheeks growing red with shame. "It's faulty. That's why Endeavor stopped training me last month," he reminds her bitterly. Fuyumi thinks back to that day and inwardly winces, remembering how torn up Touya was and still is about his callous treatment. "I could never be a hero. Not like you."

Fuyumi punched him in the arm, snapping him out of his pity-party. "You can and you will. Think about it, we'll be a tag-team, saving the world and other extreme sports with hoarfrost and hellfire," she sings the last bit with a playful grin on her face. "It'll be like those cartoons Natsuo loves so much."

"But my quirk..." he tries again weakly, feeling hope bubble up in his chest.

"Is fine," she finishes. "Besides, we'll work on it together. We have three years, seven months, and twenty-six days until the entrance exam. There's time, Touya."

He heaves a sigh. "The Old Man _really_ isn't going to like this," he warns, staring her dead in the face as she realizes that she has him.

"I don't give a damn what he likes or doesn't like," she shoots back, a frown marring her face. "This is for _us_."

"For us," he repeats, trying out the words in his mouth and liking the warm feeling they cause. "When do we start?"

Fuyumi grinned, a twinkle in her eye that hadn't been there before today. _She has a goal now_ , Touya realized.

"Tomorrow."

Touya returned her grin. "Alright then get out," he ordered, shooing her off the bed. "If we're going to be training, I need as much sleep as possible."

Fuyumi laughs, rising off the bed and letting herself out of her twin's room. "Goodnight."

"Night."

The door closed quietly and with that, Touya was alone again and more hopeful than he could ever remember being in his eleven years of life. He fell asleep with a smile on his face and woke up bright and early the next morning ready to train _hard_.

He was going to be a pro-hero.

And no one, not even _Endeavor himself_ , could stop him.

* * *

 **A/N:** A double upload? Yeah, I just couldn't stop writing. Again, this was written and published same day so if there are any errors or spelling mistakes, my bad. Also, this particular fic is going to have very few chapters as I'm working on a larger-scale fic for the Naruto fandom at the moment and want to dedicate most of my time to that particular project. _But_ I will be making this a series (titled 'Hoarfrost' after my name for Fuyumi's quirk), likely a series of one-shots (likely in chronological order because I'm crazy like that) in this universe and how the Todoroki family's lives change for the better because of Hero!Fuyumi. I freaking love Touya and he deserved a hell of a lot better than he got so this is pretty self-indulgent. Yes, I think her and Touya are twins and yes, they're going to be superheroes together. Fight me. Again I say FUCK ENDEAVOR AND THE GROUND HE WALKS ON. I've been fortunate enough to have never been abused so I can't write completely authentically, but I hope that it was accurate enough the way that the Todoroki fam reacts to it. Endeavor's a piece of shit. You can't change my mind.

Question of the Post: What should their hero names be? Comment down below.

Also, feel free to leave me OCs that you want for me to write into the next bits whenever they eventually go to UA. They can be faculty, students, whatever. Drop 'em below. I'd love to read them.

Alright, bye y'all!


	3. Centigrade

"C'mon, Touya, hold it!" Fuyumi urges, watching his tight control over his quirk fluctuate.

Touya grunts, his arms held out, blue flames dancing down his limbs as he sweats _buckets_. His face is painfully pale, but he kept shooting blisteringly hot fire out of his hands in a concentrated burst of pure, unadulterated control and power. Over the past couple years since the twins had begun training together, they had learned _a lot_ about the nature of Touya's quirk, namely that it wasn't as simple as 'he has really hot flames that he can't control' and that it had two parts.

They began training in the woods behind their old park, the same one Fuyumi realized she wanted to be a hero in, the day after her blow-up with Endeavor as promised. Deep into the forest, shrouded by the towering trees, they trained after they were released from their home-schooling, not caring much about stealth in the face of an absentee mother and an uncaring father. Every single day since Fuyumi had told Endeavor no, sleet or snow, rain or shine, they trained from the moment their respective tutors finished mouthing the words "See you tomorrow" until it became too dark outside for them to see a foot in front of them without the help of Touya's flames. The twins trained until they could hardly make the walk home without keeling over in exhaustion.

They weren't playing around.

Most days were more uneventful than others, especially when they were first starting out with their training. More often than not, Touya would lose control and burn himself and the surrounding area before Fuyumi could isolate it with her ice and begin the process of healing her brother's burns. Instead of disheartening the pair, this only made the two of them more determined to figure out what they were missing about his quirk, causing many late nights poring over quirk mechanics texts instead of sleeping until, finally, Fuyumi cracked it.

About six months into their training, around their shared twelfth birthday, Fuyumi realized that his quirk was more than incompatible with his body. His internal temperature was more fit for an ice quirk than a fire quirk, which explained why when he was sick, even low-grade fevers affected him a lot more than the average person. It's because his body's resting temperature was almost fifteen degrees cooler than most people's. That simple fact also explains why he isn't fireproof anywhere other than his palms. His body was too cold to handle the immense heat of containing a fire quirk.

That is, until Fuyumi learned about thermoregulation, the second part of Touya's quirk.

Like most fire or ice users, they had an innate ability to make their bodies heat up or freeze over in order to accommodate their quirk better. Where Endeavor tended to heat his body up, and Fuyumi instinctively knew how to bring her core temperature down near freezing, Touya was a bit of an anomaly. Most users can only match their temperature to their quirk, exemplified in Fuyumi's innability to heat up her body using her quirk like Endeavor might be able to do and vice-versa. Touya was different. Since he had somewhat of a dual-quirk — fire on the outside and ice on the inside — he could go either way, hot or cold in a way that seemed to almost foreshadow their youngest otouto's quirk.

For weeks after this was discovered, Fuyumi facilitated Touya practicing bringing his body temperature up until he was sweating like a madman and sending it plummeting down into the negatives until he was shaking like he was going to fall to pieces. He repeated this exercise multiple times in rapid succession daily while doing their normal exercises until it became automatic. The entire time, Touya was working up his internal tolerance for extremely high and extremely low temperatures until he could maintain them himself with a startling degree of accuracy. While Fuyumi kept watch to make sure he didn't kill himself in their admittedly dangerous practice-sessions, this rigorous exercise helped Touya a lot in terms of mastering his quirk.

It became a simple matter of control.

When he wanted to use his quirk, he needed to bring his temperature down, down, down, in order to combat the intense heat his body put off externally until it averaged out, both temperatures inside and outside, to a chilly twenty-two degrees Celsius. It didn't matter how hot his fire went, he just had to keep adjusting his core body temperature to match it and he was fine. That way, his body didn't burn at all.

Touya mastered that about two years into their training, much to Fuyumi's continued delight, until Touya's flames were hot enough to turn most materials into ash at his fingertips with little to no damage to himself.

Fuyumi was another story entirely.

Her problem wasn't a lack of control, it was just a lack of refinement. Daily, Fuyumi practiced honing her skills as much as can be expected from a self-taught UA hopeful, ranging her attacks from wide-range offensive moves like her ice-needles to close-range defensive moves like her ice-dome, the latter of which being powerful enough to withstand _all_ of Touya's firepower for over a hundred and fifteen seconds, something she was _immensely_ proud of.

As days turned to weeks, weeks turned into months, and months turned into years, the twins had grown exponentially more power under their own self-regulated training regimen. Now, only a few days out from the Exam, the now fifteen-year-olds were perfecting their quirk usage _and_ hand-to-hand combat skills in preparation.

Right now, it was Touya's turn. His job is to maintain a blast of his blue flames as hot as he can for as long as he can.

 _Nine minutes. He's been going for_ nine _minutes,_ Fuyumi thinks, in absolute awe of her twin's raw power. He was _amazing_. A vein on his forehead popped out and he grits his teeth, a muscle in his forearm flexing as he kept giving his all to his flames, the intensity of the heat causing the thick wall of ice Fuyumi had made to combat the destructive nature of his quirk begin to thin, forcing her to keep reinforcing it with fresh ice regularly.

Fuyumi glanced at the pocket-watch, her pale eyebrows disappearing into her hairline. "Nine minutes, Touya!" she calls, watching him strain as his grip on his quirk went a little haywire, the blue flames sputtering a bit before he snarled and kept pushing them out. "Don't hurt yourself trying to get to ten," she warns, looking up at the slowly dimming late February sky and judging the time. "Remember, you can't burn yourself out completely! The Exams are in—"

"Tomorrow, I know," he bit out through gritted teeth. "I just need to…" he trails off, lost in the focus of maintaining his hottest flames for a continuous and prolonged period of time like this.

Fuyumi frowns, not exactly happy with his inability to chill out during the best of times, but was resigned.

 _He's determined to hit the ten minute mark and there's nothing I can do to stop him._

Less than twenty seconds later, the moment she finishes saying "Ten minutes!", his fire sputters out completely and he hunches over with his hands on his knees, breathing like he just ran a marathon. His normally pale face is as red as the roots of his hair peeking out from his dyed hair with the exertion as sweat dripped down his face by the gallon. That was the one thing about using his flames for a long period of time that they hadn't quite come up with a fix for yet: it _exhausted_ him more than anything else.

He gulped down air as he realigned his internal temperature from being frigid back down into the normal, non-glacial ranges. Fuyumi watched him with sharp eyes for any injuries like she always did, ready to help him get patched up and was proud to find that there were none like usual. He hadn't really hurt himself in about eight months if Fuyumi was remembering correctly and even then it was nothing like his old third-degree burns he sustained as a child from both his own fire and Endeavor's. It was amazing. _He_ was amazing.

Touya had changed so, so much since their first, clumsy training session. Not only had he grown physically, he wasn't nearly as insecure now, more apt to stand up to Endeavor when their family was getting abused by him and much less likely to get hurt by his flaming barbs, seeming to ignore the pointed insults better than Pro-Heroes avoided bad press.

Not to mention the leaps and bounds he had made quirk-wise, going from the scrawny eleven-year-old who couldn't even keep his own flames from using him as kindling to a striking young man who made his blue flames _dance_ with his immaculate control over them, all because he learned about thermoregulation with his sister. He was so phenomenal that he could blast his flames at full power for ten minutes _straight_ without getting a single burn on his body.

¨Great job, Touya!" she exclaimed as he panted, breathing in the chilly forest air by the lungful. He sent her a victorious grin and his legs gave out. Her brother fell backward onto the leaf-strewn ground, catching his breath. Fuyumi tosses him his water bottle which he snatches out of the air effortlessly, nodding in thanks. "We're going to kick butt at the exams!" she shouts, uncharacteristically loud in her cheer, even going so far as to pump her fit in the air in her newfound exuberance.

Touya chuckles quietly, nodding to his excited twin. "All thanks to your brilliance, 'Yumi."

She beams at him and Touya is proud that he can wring a smile as bright as this one out of her given the circumstances.

Endeavor had finally found out about their ambition that past month when they were in the middle of sending in their applications and came down on them both _hard_ , shouting at them about how UA would never accept failures like them and that they wouldn't be allowed to apply under the Todoroki name lest they sully it with their inadequacies. When Touya drawled lazily that they hadn't planned on using his name to get in in the first place, Endeavor looked even more pissed that they didn't _want_ to use his powerful name. He hadn't hit them — _Thank God,_ Touya had thought, swallowing his relief shamefully — but his harsh words had cut them both deep, especially Fuyumi. Touya was scared that this would discourage her, but she took it all in stride, training harder than she had been before, honing her body into a _weapon_ at their Muay Thai classes with Hideki-sensei.

Their teacher was a kindly older man in his sixties with an undeniable soft spot for the two of them. He never asked questions whenever they came into his dojo covered in bruises and burns, begging for lessons almost three years ago and, even better, he refused to take their money. The twins knew that he had at least an inkling about what was going on in the Todoroki household, but he never pushed. Despite Fuyumi's small stature, she was _scary_ quick on her feet, able to get around most opponents using her footwork alone, and taking them out with her quick reflexes. She had taken to the art like a fish does with water and hadn't stopped improving since, so much so that if there was one person Touya was happy he wouldn't have to fight in the Exams tomorrow, it was his sister.

For once, he was happy that they'd be separated since they were siblings.

Touya himself was no slouch either. Over the years, he had shot up several inches and filled out under the watchful eye of his sister and Hideki-sensei. He was no longer the sickly little boy he was before he started training. That, paired with his altered diet made him a great deal healthier than he was before. Now, Touya stood a fighting chance against the other competitors. Though he'd never have Endeavor's stocky and muscular structure, he'd make do with the tall and willowy body type found on his mother's side, making him lean and fast. It had done him well in martial arts.

Unless he was fighting against Fuyumi, of course.

Fuyumi blushes lightly because of Touya's compliment. "C'mon, we have to get home," she says, walking over to him and holding out a hand to haul him up. "It's getting late and I'm exhausted."

Touya takes her proffered limb and she tugs him onto his feet easily. They begin picking up the area, grabbing their bags and getting rid of the remnants of their quirks in odd places. Fuyumi used her drop of fire-power and evaporated all of her ice quickly, causing it all to dissolve into steam in the dim lighting.

"Remember to eat up tonight," Fuyumi says, picking up her jacket and shrugging it on to ward off against the February chill. "You need to eat as much as possible to fuel your fires for tomorrow's practical."

Touya nods in agreement, still a little too tired to say much, conserving his energy for the walk home. He and Fuyumi fall into step beside each other as they carefully pick their way through the shallow forest in the direction of the park, stepping over felled logs and dodging weirdly placed holes in the ground with practiced ease. As they talk, Fuyumi nervously reminds Touya of everything they had agreed on doing, down to the fabric of the clothing on their backs and which ones would be the most breathable. Though a little annoyed with her worrying, he lets her get it out, knowing that she'll probably feel better afterward. When she starts to ramble about the exact minute they were going to fall asleep to maximize the effectiveness of their slumber, Touya stopped her.

"We're going to be _fine_ ," he reassures, elbowing her in the side playfully as he drags out the vowel sound for comedic effect. Fuyumi glares at him, irritated with him cutting her off like that but before she can complain, he jumps in. "We've been preparing for over _three years_ ," he reminds her. "If we don't have it down pat by now, we won't and there's no use worrying about it now," he reasons, his shoes scuffing on the pavement.

Fuyumi considers his words for a moment before nodding to herself. "You're right," she admits, a little sheepish. "I was just—"

"Nervous?" Touya offers.

Fuyumi smiles ruefully. "Yeah." She folds her arm across her chest. "It's just… this is _everything_ we've been working towards. UA is the _dream_ ," she says honestly, focussing her grey eyes in Touya's direction. "What if it was all for nothing?"

"It wouldn't be all for nothing," Touya replies as they walked under a streetlight. "We learned how to control our quirks, how to get _better_. It will _never_ be all for nothing. 'Yumi, you helped me so much," he admits earnestly. "I don't know where I'd be if you hadn't decided to bring me with you to UA. It means something, everything we worked so hard for. So what if it doesn't pan out? We'll just apply to the school with the second best hero course and if that doesn't work, well… you can probably guess the rest," he concludes, finishing up his speech. "We're _ready_ , 'Yumi."

She sighs, closing her eyes tightly, scrunching up her face, and releasing the tension. "You're right," she concedes, her expression going from one of anxiety to one with a fiery determination. "Let's kick ass tomorrow and become heroes," she declares, banishing all of the fear from her body.

There was no room for that anymore.

Fuyumi was no longer the scared eleven-year-old who ran away from home to escape her father's wrath. She's no longer the same little girl who ran from confrontation and hid her face when things got sticky. Fuyumi wasn't the same person who had listened to her siblings get terrorized by Endeavor and had done nothing about it.

No.

Fuyumi had _changed_ , clear as day, but she had also stayed the exact same. She was the same girl who squealed when the newest installment of her favorite book series hit the shelves of the local bookstore. Fuyumi was the same girl who smiled easily around her brothers and made small trinkets for their mother, just for the scant possibility of it bringing a smile to her lovely face. She was the same girl who told Endeavor no. Fuyumi was the same Fuyumi who froze him to the spot when he tried to strike her after she told Endeavor no. If anything, she was _more_ of that Fuyumi than she'd ever been before, more confidence, much braver, with more fire in her than all of her family put together.

The Yukimura twins were ready for anything the UA entrance exams could throw at them and as long as they had each other, they'd be unstoppable.

* * *

 **A/N:** Hey y'all, this week has been super busy so sorry for the weird upload time. Honestly, this is just a mini project so I'll be posting sporadically, the last chapter being the exams and the results of said exams so get ready for that next chapter. Thanks to everyone that's been giving me ideas for names and stuff. I appreciate it. Yukimura is their mother's maiden-name so YES, they're using it instead of their father's because he's a dick. BUT can y'all please start sending in OCs? I need people to put into their class in UA and I want to use some of you guys' ideas in that. Idk, I just think it'd be really cool for you guys to be a part of the Hoarfrost Universe. Of course, I can make up a bunch of OCs (even borrow some from my other fic), but I think it'd be cooler if they were fresh new ideas. QoTP: What do you think Touya's personality is going to be around their classmates at UA? Also, what do you think the twins' style is going to be (even though we KNOW Touya is a whole emo-goth boi)? Also, how was your day bc ilysm? Thanks to everyone who's been reading this. I love y'all so much. I hope you guys liked this chapter. Onto the next!


	4. Glacier

A/N: No, I'm not dead. Sorry if this chapter's kinda short, but what it lacks in length, it makes up for in action.

—

The written exam wasn't that hard to be honest.

Fuyumi taps her pen against her head, lost in thought before confidently circling an answer and flipping her test book over to the next page. With all of the practice exams Touya and she had been taking courtesy of the world wide web, they were more than prepared to attempt to get decent marks on this part.

She shifted in her seat, wishing she could've sat near Touya. Fuyumi sighed. Touya always made everything a little bit easier by just _being_. Whether it was Endeavor's wrath or a bad injury, his special brand of wry sarcasm mixed with being horrifically emotionally stunted made her relax.

But he wasn't here.

He was somewhere on the other side of the ginormous auditorium because they were listed as siblings on their applications and in order to minimize the risk of good old fashioned cheating, they had to be separated upon entry.

Touya had shrugged when it happened, forcing nonchalance into his body and he smiled with just a smidge too much tension to be genuine, saying a lazy farewell before going to his seat. Fuyumi had seen through him though. He was feeling the separation anxiety just as keenly as she, if not _more_. It was a common side-effect of growing up in the circumstances they did. Being away from the other made them feel… not right, like a piece of themselves was missing. Fuyumi worried her lip, at the thought, her anxiety bubbling in her stomach.

 _The exam,_ she thought, cutting into her rising nerves quickly. She was distracting herself. _Focus on the exam._

She frowned, returning to the paper with renewed fervor, forcing herself to focus on what she could do at the time. Eventually, she finished the test, but before she was even halfway done with going back over her answers, their allotted time was up and they were being screamed at by a blond guy with a frankly _horrendous_ hairstyle about how their next objective was to take out robots in a simulation and they were ushered out of the auditorium without a moment's reprieve.

Twenty minutes later and Fuyumi's heart is in her throat because _how in God's name am I supposed to find my way through_ this _?_ The training field was large, looking to stretch a little over seven city-blocks, full of actual buildings and cars, looking to all the world like downtown Musutafu.

At least two dozen other UA hopefuls milled around, some talking to each other while others seemed to be preparing for the oncoming competition. Those hopefuls included, most notably, a tall girl with two sets of arms boasting an absolutely _wicked_ set of claws near the back, a pale girl with striking blue hair nearly vibrating with excitement a couple of meters right of her, a dark-skinned boy who was swearing lowly in a language Fuyumi didn't quite understand, shifting from one foot to another.

Fuyumi moved near the gates that marked the entrance to the training ground, using her small stature to her advantage. She murmured a quiet 'excuse me' a couple of times, apologizing as she went, ignoring the complaints of some of the burlier students.

Touya liked to say that Fuyumi's real quirk was her brain. Despite the running joke that she had taken all of his brain cells in the womb, he wasn't entirely wrong. Her ice quirk was powerful, yes, but it was incredibly _draining_. If she used it for too long, frostbite began forming on her limbs and she ran the risk of slipping into a hypothermic coma in the worst case scenario. Her true power lied in her ability to _think_. It was part of the reason she'd strong-armed Touya into taking martial arts classes with her in order to supplement her ice with good old fashioned ass kicking, so if it failed or she was unable to use it due to unforeseen circumstances, she wasn't screwed. She was the brains behind their training, always thinking of new ways to do things to maximize their time to make the most out of every single exercise. To do that, a person would have to be very, _very_ observant.

A side effect of growing up with an abusive guardian is that she was painfully aware of her surroundings. All four of the children from the twins down to baby Shouto were able to read a room and know when the atmosphere changed and danger was afoot as well as being hyperaware to minute changes in facial expressions. Touya had laughed bitterly once that that was the one thing they could thank Endeavor for: their ability to strategize and plan. Before, it was how they had survived in that house with him. Now, it was how they would _thrive_.

Fuyumi slowed down her breathing, taking deep inhales before she nodded to herself, opened her eyes, and set to work to plan for the five minutes they'd been given before the test started.

Points. This thing was about getting as many points as possible in the allotted time. The harder to kill robots, the three-pointers, were likely going to be fewer and farther in between than their less valuable counterparts, meaning she'd have to focus mainly on twos and threes to rack up points using more damaging moves like her needles or spears if she didn't want to rely on her enhanced hand-to-hand combat skills. _Range_ , she planned, _get as many as I can at one time so I can save energy for the end if I need it_. There was going to be a limited number of bots as to weed out those with non-combative quirks so she'd need to hurry. All she knew is that if she didn't want to run out of points, she'd need to be one of the first inside and start moving _quickly_.

Pressed up against the metal bars of the gate, Fuyumi shoved down her awe and her canny grey eyes swept the place, taking notice of every single minute detail. She mentally cataloged everything as she looked. _Cars_ , she noticed, counting an average of three on each block she could see from her position. _Could provide cover._

Next, she eyeballed the size of the buildings closest to her, noting that none of them seemed to be any larger than about fifty meters tall on either side of the cleared streets. _High enough to get on top of if I need to pick off robots from a distance with ranged attacks_.

Which brought back the elephant — or elephants, she guessed— _not_ in the room.

 _Where are the robots?_

Judging by the Pro Hero's diagrams on the board, the robots were too tall and bulky to be hidden so well. The doorways were too narrow for them to fit if they didn't want to risk property damage, which, though it was a fake city, she doubted they would place them somewhere hard for them to maneuver.

Alley-ways were too easy and would be visible from where they were all gathered. From what Fuyumi could see, there were none, not even a single _screw_.

Then, her gaze caught on the various unusually wide manhole covers, namely on why they were _there_.

 _Why would you need manhole covers for a sewer that doesn't even exist?_

She bit her lip, staring hard at the street, feeling the seconds count down before she'd have to sprint into the city lest she get trampled by the others. For this exercise, she'd have to assume that everything in this city was deliberately placed, down to the banners in the fake shops' windows. Everything was there on _purpose_. She'd just have to think about why.

 _Plumbing must not actually work seeing as though the city is fake meaning that either the faux sewer-system is accessible for those who think about it, closed off, or…_

 _That's where all the robots are being housed._

Her eyes widened slightly before a small smile found its way onto her face seconds before the starting horn blares. Fuyumi is thrown back into reality as the gates are thrown open and she sprints into the unknown with half of a plan formed in her head, repeating the words:

 _I will not fail!_

—

She has only fifteen minutes left in the exercise when she starts lagging.

Fuyumi is panting hard, a hand to the stitch that'd been working its way in her side for the past ten minutes and the other pressed against the brick wall to her right for support as she stares down three two-pointers.

 _Forty-six points_.

Fuyumi threw herself to the side as one of the bots swings its tail at her, destroying the wall she was previously leaning on. She pivots, switching her momentum and slams a hand on the hot metal, her ice coating its limb and slowing it down before she ducks under another attack from its friend.

She was at her wit's end here and had been for the twenty minutes. The stupid bots were hardly giving her _any_ openings and any time she tried to take one, one of the others would nearly take her darn _head_ off.

Fuyumi breathed through gritted teeth as she coated her palm in heavy chunks of ice and slamming it into the vulnerable body of the second bot, relishing in the wires she is suddenly able to see.

Her victory is short-lived, however, when she is blindsided by the third and thrown unceremoniously into the remains of the wall. Her back hit the brick and she crumbled to her knees and onto her palms, her ears ringing at the impact as her vision swam dangerously. Now, more than ever, she wished Touya was here. As she tried to get her bearings, the bots came at her, slower than they had been, but not slow enough for her to dodge, not in her condition anyway.

She is about two seconds from an impact that would probably knock her out of the competition when a streak of burgundy comes from _nowhere_ and kicks one of the heads of the robots clean off its body, sending it careening into the alleyway.

Having got the rest of their attention with her bold entrance, her mystery hero vaults over the falling robot carcass and closer to the bots, a sharp-edged smile on their face.

A feminine voice calls out, confident and strong: "Sorry I'm late to the party," she drawls, taking a menacing step forward. "Traffic was a _nightmare_."

Before Fuyumi can even blink, the girl _unleashes_ herself onto the remaining two robots, a flurry of blows and hits until they're nothing but scrap metal lying on the concrete. Fuyumi watches this with wide eyes as her vision clears and her head stops spinning quite so much.

The girl ambles up to her crumpled figure a wry smile on her face when she sticks out a noticeably scarred hand to help Fuyumi up. She takes it gladly, popping her neck and rolling her shoulders, feeling the drain in her powers like the ache in a phantom limb, knowing she likely couldn't use her quirk for much longer without damaging herself.

"Uh, thanks for the assist," Fuyumi says, a little awkward at having to be saved like that, shifting her weight on her other foot.

The other girl grins easily. "No problem! I need more points anyway. Don't mention it."

Fuyumi nods. "Oh, alright then."

"Name's Kazehaya Fubuki," she offers. Fuyumi is about to reply with her own name before the redhead's attention is drawn elsewhere, several meters behind her across the street where another altercation is going on. "I'll see you around, Yue-chan!" she says before running off in that direction.

"Y… That's not my—" Fuyumi started, but she stopped herself as the girl was already gone.

 _Get your head back in the game, 'Yumi!_ she reminds herself as she takes off back the way she came with renewed energy.

She'd just dispatched a couple of two-pointers and a three-pointer before she hears the screaming coming from a block over. Curious, she shakes the remnants of robot off her hand and runs to investigate.

Fuyumi rounds the corner into the place where the commotion originated when she sees it.

 _Holy…_

It was absolutely _massive_. Taller than the largest building in the training ground, the largest bot Fuyumi had ever _seen_ was towering over them, smashing the area to bits and sending screaming teenagers flocking anywhere but _near_ it. Fuyumi takes it all in, wracking her brain to get it to remember all of the rules Present Mic had said. _Never_ in the instructions had he said that they would have to face down _this_!

 _Or had he?_

She remembered the last bot he'd mentioned, the one that had been reportedly worth not a single point and had been disregarded by most of the people around her. Was _this_ what he'd been talking about? Why put it in if it was worth zero points? _Deliberate. Everything here is deliberate_ , she reminded herself, staying on her feet as she was almost knocked over by a fleeing student. _Why would they put it here if—_

Her thoughts were stopped in their tracks when she sees him.

Most of the hero-hopefuls had vacated the premises before now, moving as far as their legs or wings or other various quirks could carry them.

Not him.

Fuyumi stares, horrified, as she sees the black boy from earlier running for his life from the robot. His face is ruddy with exertion as he vaults over debris with much more grace and poise than Fuyumi probably could have given the circumstances in his escape. He is fast, but not quite fast enough as the robot was bearing down on him, closing the distance between them faster than he could create more.

Fuyumi felt something shift in her. A feeling that cut through the terror she felt as the robot closed in on her location, one that took her back to that day, all those months ago when she had been eleven and scared, but said no and meant it. When she stood up. When she had _protected_. It felt like a niggling in the back of her brain, something or someone telling her that she could not run if this boy was in danger.

Fuyumi knew a lot of things. She knew advanced arithmetic, she knew she loved her brothers, and she knew that she could never, _ever_ turn her back on someone who needed her. Forcing the fear deep down in her, she took one shaky step forward in his direction.

Then another.

And another.

Until she was running towards a boy whose name she didn't even know with her heart in her throat. He looked at her, his eyes wild and wide, likely wondering what the hell she planned on doing when she made a bee-line to the right, stopping in front of a metal fire-hydrant.

Fuyumi dove down deep into her reserves of power, forcing her ice out, hardening it over her hand until it formed a club. Panting loudly, she slammed her makeshift hammer over the hydrant with all her might. Loud clangs sounded out into the air along with her own frantic breaths before the metal gave and water flooded out of the twisted metal and onto the streets in waves.

The boy was now only a couple dozen meters away from her, so she'd have to time this _perfectly_ so that she didn't accidentally catch _him_ in her attack. He kept sprinting, seeming to sense that she had a plan and he poured on the speed, his fear replaced by something else as Fuyumi watched him, her hands pointed at the water spraying onto the street.

He was thirty meters away and Fuyumi tensed, ready to go.

Then he was twenty meters away. Fuyumi held her breath.

Ten.

Five.

Fuyumi forced every ounce of her power out at once, letting out a war-cry as her coldest and hardest ice followed the path the hydrant had created and began spreading along the road, catching the robot's wheels right as the boy passed her. Fighting through the black-spots in her vision, she gritted her teeth and kept _pushing_. Her ice flowed out of her, stopping the robot in its tracks, stopping up the gears before traveling up its body and halting it completely in the middle of the street, its red eyes growing dim.

Fuyumi's ice sputtered out and she dropped to her knees, breathing heavily on the sidewalk, an overwhelming sense of satisfaction welling up in her as her vision darkened, unaware of the shouting that had renewed from her audience of teens who hadn't quite left the area.

Fuyumi lost her balance and fell over, only to be caught by a random set of arms that, when she looked up to see who they were attached to, belonged to the boy she'd saved who was staring at her like she was an alien.

His mouth began moving, saying syllables that didn't quite make it past the ringing in her ears before she lost consciousness entirely and passed out, the entire world fading into black, but not before one thought made its way into her mind:

 _How's that for a failure, Endeavor?_

Then, everything went dark.

—

A/N: Heyyyyy. Yeah, I've been gone for a minute. I kinda lost motivation to write this for a moment due to family problems, but I rewatched BNHA on Hulu and I got reinspired so here's this! I hope I wrote this right. I kinda wrote it all in one sitting so if it has any glaring errors, I'm sorry, I just really wanted to release this ASAP! I hope you guys liked some of the cameos of certain OCs! If yours wasn't featured yet, don't worry! They might've been fighting with Touya! Who knows? But they'll get here eventually. Also, can we talk about Fuyumi's brilliance? That girl can think her way out of _anything_ I swear. Fuyumi ended with _fifty-three_ villain points. The girl's amazing. So here's this chapter featuring, like, four of you guys' OCs. I hope I did them justice! I tried really hard to get them right so if I didn't, I'm sorry! But I'm really happy with this chapter and it was fun to write so I hope you guys liked it.

Question of the Post: How do you guys think Touya did in his practical and do you think he also took out the bot?

Shout out to everyone who sent in OCs, particularly users: ThatSpicySeaFlapFlap, Actresspdx, teaxtime, and Wonder_wings (all on Ao3) whose OCs I used this chapter! I'll try to use all of them in this series so stay tuned if I missed you today.

Anyways, onto the next!

(Sorry for any typos. It's midnight and I have an exam that I haven't studied for in the morning, I'm doing my _best_ ;-;)


	5. Evaporate

Fuyumi's return to consciousness is marked by a serious throbbing behind her eyes and a dryness in her mouth. The rest of her senses slowly begin to return to her one by one as she fully awakens from what she vaguely remembers as an overload— one of the worst she's had in _years_.

When she was younger, overloading her body from using too much of her quirk at once or from losing control of her emotions was a pretty common occurrence. As a child, she hardly had any semblance of control over her massively powerful ice powers, especially when the second she lost command of her emotions, her quirk would run wild with them. The power of her ice seemed to be tied with her emotional state which made for some very frustrating training sessions with both Touya and, once upon a time if her memory serves her, Endeavor himself before he threw her away.

Her overloads were _destructive_ if left unchecked. Things ended up broken from her ice exploding outward from her body at high velocities when she was furious. Other children got frostbite from her hoarfrost when she was anxious or sad. Endeavor got frozen in ice so cold not even the hottest of his flames could penetrate their frigid depths when she felt threatened. Not only that, but when she overloaded, a lot of the time it would take a large toll on her body, sometimes causing her to slip into a state similar to a hypothermic coma, frostbite licking at her own limbs as she lies unconscious. She hadn't gotten _that_ bad since she was eight, hence why when she overloaded at eleven she hadn't promptly passed out of the floor, but usually they were pretty bad.

That meant that she ended up spending a _lot_ of her early childhood in and out of hospitals, much to her mother's dismay. This, in particular, became the deciding factor in Endeavor ignoring her; a child that couldn't control their quirk to the extent in which _she_ couldn't was useless.

 _Especially_ if they have ice powers instead of fire.

Eventually, she learned to control her emotions in little ways to keep from hurting herself or the people around her during one of her overloads, but that still bothered her to this day. She hadn't had an overload quite like that since— well, since she was eleven and terrified in her living room.

"Ugh," she groans, opening her eyes slowly and taking in the darkness blanketing what looked like an empty hospital room, outfitted with around a half dozen beds lined up in a row and an office space near the door, fit with a desk, filing cabinets, and a sleeping computer. Fuyumi's heart starts to beat out of her chest at the unfamiliar surroundings. The heart rate monitor next to her beeped out of control in tandem with frantic breathing.

Fuyumi wrestles with herself for control to wrangle her fear into submission. She begins to wrack her brain, rewinding her memories to try to remember what had happened prior to her waking up in this strange room. _The practical_ , she recalls, her brow furrowing slightly. _I took out the zero-pointer, overloaded,_ she cringes, _and passed out_.

 _Where am I?_

Slowly approaching footsteps sound quietly outside of her door, cutting her thoughts off abruptly. Immediately Fuyumi sits up, ignoring the protesting in what seemed to be every cell in her body and slips into a defensive stance, her bare feet planted solidly on the cold linoleum floor and her arms up, ready to freeze whoever walked in if they were a threat.

The door slides open and an old lady walks into the room. "You gave us all quite a scare, young lady," she chides.

Fuyumi frowns in confusion, her quirk roiling underneath her skin in preparation to be used. "Who—"

"Oh now, now, there'll be none of that, child," the woman says, shuffling closer to her bed and pushing her down with a surprising amount of strength for such a seemingly frail body with her cane until she was laying back on the bed once more, her mouth opening and closing as she search for words to say.

Before she could ask any questions, the woman tuts, hobbling over to a desk and sat down, shaking the mouse to wake the computer. "I'm Recovery Girl, UA's resident doctor," she introduces. "You hurt yourself during the practical."

Fuyumi sat back up, her hackles lowering again as she realized that this old woman was _far_ from a threat. "Where is my brother?" she demanded, her voice slightly hoarse.

Recover Girl chuckled quietly. "Likely downstairs in the cafeteria eating. He didn't leave your side so I had to force the silly boy to go eat or else his growling stomach would wake you from your much needed rest."

"Oh alright. Thank you," Fuyumi slowly says, remembering her manners for the first time. A light flush at her rudeness rises in her cheeks. She reached down under the bed and grabbed her shoes, slipping them onto her feet. "Um, when can I leave?"

"You heroes always rushing around with no regard for your health…" she scolded, shaking her head. "Reckless and stupid, the whole lot of you, I say."

Fuyumi crossed her arms petulantly across her chest. "I was plenty careful," she defends, a bit of temper rising with the implication as the old woman walked up to her.

"Careful enough to land yourself in a hospital bed and not a casket."

Fuyumi's blush returned full-force when she lets out an indignant noise, somewhere between a gasp and a squawk.

She chortles, smiling widely and plants a large kiss on her forehead. "You're good to go, young lady. Be more careful next time," she chided, ushering her out the door. Fuyumi's mouth gaped open, too stunned to speak, to ask any of the questions that were floating around in her head. "Take care of yourself, girlie. Shota-chan will see you out."

The door shut in her face and she was left alone in the hallway, wondering who the hell this 'Shota-chan' was. Impatient and ready to see her brother, she picked a direction and walked down the dark hallway to hopefully find the cafeteria.

Fuyumi was lost in thought, recalling the events of the practical exam. She thought she'd done well enough, racking up a decent amount of points — fifty-three if she remembered correctly — but she might've completely _blown_ it with the zero-pointer after she dispatched it, but then promptly passed out in the arms of a boy she'd saved. Recovery Girl _would_ say something like that to bolster her spirits before her dreams were crushed. Fuyumi sighs, feeling the telltale prickling of tears behind her eyes in her frustration.

She presses the heels of her palms into her eyes to try to keep the tears at bay,

No one had told her to fight that robot. Hell, there weren't any points even _assigned_ to it. All she had to do was sit pretty with her points and pray that that would be enough in the end. Instead, all she'd done was show off and promptly pass out, rendering herself _useless_ in the face of any other conflict. She had been doing _great_ until her stupid altruism stepped in and ruined it for her. That boy would've been _fine_. It wasn't like there weren't pros or teachers on standby if things got sticky and the students had to get pulled out. She had needed to be saved _twice_ , once by the girl in the alley and second when the boy had caught her before she passed out. What kind of hero needs to be _saved_? Fuyumi just _had_ to mess it up for herself.

Now she'd never get into UA.

Now she'd never be a hero.

The fear and anxiety made her stomach lurch and she had to stop walking, her legs shaking too much to stand. She collapses to her knees, hyperventilating and unable to stop it. _Great_ , she thought through her tears, _now I'm having another panic attack_.

Because apparently not only was she stupid, she was weak.

Just like Endeavor said.

 _They don't let_ weaklings _into UA. I should just give up now while I still have my dignity,_ she thought through her tears. _This was a mistake._ I _was a mistake. I was stupid to believe that I could do this_. Her shaking hands reached up to cover her mouth, muffling her sobs. She became dimly aware of the dull pain in her chest.

 _I'm a failure._

Through her spiralling, she hadn't even heard the approaching footsteps until a pair of legs stopped in front of her. The body that they were attached to crouched down to her level and a face was within her view.

A young man with dark hair and deep eyebags was staring at her with concern in his eyes. "Breathe, kid. You're going to be fine."

Fuyumi just kept gasping, unable to catch her breath or get enough air. "I-I-I can't," she got out through her rough breathing, a hand over her heart. Usually focusing on her heartbeat helped to ground her during one of her panic attacks but it wasn't working for whatever reason. Her heart was about to beat right out of her chest

The man sighed deeply before sitting on the floor with her, his long legs crossed in front of him. "Don't give me that," he scolds, his brow furrowing. "You took out a zero-pointer single-handedly without batting an eyelash. Stop making excuses. _You_ are in control. Not your panic. Act like it.

Fuyumi's eyes widen at his sharp reprimand and nods shakily, his blunt demeanor helping to lessen the effects of her panic attack.

"This is going to pass. Here," he says, poking her in the forehead to grab her attention. Fuyumi's frantic eyes find his and he continues, "follow my lead. In and out like this."

Fuyumi does her best, working on breathing uncomfortably slow with this strange man in the middle of an unfamiliar hallway, shakily inhaling and exhaling like he said. "Yeah, just like that. You're doing great." Through his quiet encouragement and stern instructions, she slowly felt herself again after two and a half eternities shaking in a corridor.

Soon enough, her frantic heart stops tattooing her sternum and she stops panting like she just ran a marathon.

"Good," the man says, getting up off the floor once she was stable again. He holds out a hand to help her up and she takes it, noting the heavy calluses on his skin. "There might be hope for you yet."

"Thank you," she says quietly, bowing her head quickly and smoothing out the wrinkles in her pants to give her shaky hands something to do.

He waves a hand dismissively. "Don't mention it. Happens to us all."

She opens her mouth to reply when they're interrupted by approaching footsteps coming up the stairs at the end of the hallway.

When she sees a familiar shock of unruly black hair, Fuyumi lets out a breath she didn't even know she was holding.

Touya grins widely before he sees that she isn't alone, quickly becoming more guarded. He walks up to the pair of them with suspicion in his eyes. "Good to see you awake, 'Yumi," he says easily. "Who's your friend?"

Fuyumi shrugs. "Just someone I bumped into on my way to you. He, uh—"

"I'm supposed to be showing you two out," he cuts in tiredly, causing Fuyumi to realize that this man was the Shota-kun that Recovery Girl was talking about. "So how about you two make my job easier and talk while you walk?"

Touya pulls a face, his brows knitting together as the man walks ahead of them, leading them to the exit, his face annoyed enough to almost make Fuyumi giggle if she wasn't still reeling from the aftermath of a panic attack.

They both follow behind him silently until they reach a small door just off the cafeteria which he swung open to let them out into an alley on the side of the school. "There. That'll help keep any would-be paparazzi off you two while you try to get home. I don't think there are any more out this late, but with UA, you never know."

Touya nods curtly and grunts a low thanks, likely grateful for the man's impending absence, while Fuyumi searched for words. "Thank you for, uh, helping back there and, um, for showing us the—"

"Don't mention it, kid. Just be more careful," he chastises before reaching a hand out and grabbing the door. "Bye."

Before she can even respond, the twins are alone in the alleyway.

Touya turns to her with a slight grin on his face to cover up the worry that he was feeling before he saw her. "So, wanna tell me how the exam went?"

So, on the walk home, she tells him.

—

 **A/N** : Heyyyyy…

Yeah, I know I've been away for a minute but here's the chapter! Sorry for the delay. Writer's block is a bitch. Fuyumi had a moment. The entire Todoroki family is pretty fucking traumatized and Fuyumi's trauma happens to manifest in the form of severe anxiety and an acute fear of failure so yeah. But the good news is that she got help from Shota-chan. Hm, wonder why he's at UA…

Shoutout to everyone who has sent me OCs! Disclaimer: I'm probably not going to use every single OC. So don't get your hopes up! But if you haven't seen yours yet, don't worry, you might see them in the coming chapters so stay tuned.

QoTP: Do you think either of them made it into UA?

Mkay, onto the next!


	6. The Big Bang

**A/N** : I feel like I start off every chapter like this but heyyy, I'm not dead. Here's the last chapter lol. I've been working on it for like a week and I'm still not completely happy with it, but I like it so here it is. The last bit is inspired by the last song in The Lightning Thief Musical "Bring on the Monsters" so I recommend that song for that part.

—

"Jeez 'Yumi, can you stop pacing? You're giving me motion sickness," Touya complains, his voice muffled by the pillow over his face as he laid on the couch.

Fuyumi frowns, crossing her arms over her chest but not stopping. "I can't help it, you know what today is!"

Today was The Day.

Results Day.

The month in between the entrance exam and the distribution of the results was a rough one indeed. Between random anxiety attacks from Fuyumi that had her second-guessing every answer she'd bubbled and every move she'd made in the practical and Endeavor's oddly icy demeanor, the entire house was on-edge as they waited for the twins' results.

Fuyumi had bitten her nails down to the quick as she paces, glancing every so often out of the window to her right to see if the mailman had arrived. _Stupid UA,_ she thought, her stomach roiling. _Why can't use emails like the rest of the world?_

No, instead of being remotely normal, UA used good old fashioned snail-mail to get the job done, a weird practice considering it had the most state of the art facilities and funding in the country.

 _They must like to make the students suffer._

According to the internet, UA gave out their acceptance and rejection letters in the same kind of envelope with the same seal holding it shut so there was no way for either of them to differentiate between the two of them without opening it up to read their fate.

Needless to say Fuyumi is anxious as hell for more reasons than one.

Cold, blue eyes flickered across her memory, making her blanch.

 _He's not here,_ she reminds herself, trying to calm her racing heart. _He's going to be working through the night again._

 _We're safe._

Ever since the fight that erupted when he found out that they were taking the exams, he'd been weirdly silent on the matter, resorting back to his habit of ignoring the both of them unless he caught them speaking to Shouto. Fuyumi was expecting him to break the uneasy ceasefire at any minute by throwing them both out of the house or setting them on fire, but he never did. Come to think about it, she's hardly seen him since then. He spent most of the day at his office downtown and the few hours he spent at home were spent in the main part of the compound training their younger brother or sleeping.

When they _were_ able to sneak interactions with their nine year old baby brother, he was tired, but excited for them. Those nights were the best, when the twins and Natsuo would sneak around the hired help stationed around the house and into Shouto's room on the other side of the compound and they could spend time with him. They would sit quietly on his bed and play board games (Fuyumi always won), cards (Touya always _cheated_ ), or just talked with one another about everything and nothing.

Shouto was mostly curious about what it was like outside the compound as in his almost decade of living, he had only left the house three times: once to visit Touya in the hospital, the second time to see Fuyumi, and the third to go to one of Endeavor's press conferences.

The entire purpose of the conference was to talk about Endeavor's large and supposedly anonymous donation to a local children's hospital that had allegedly gotten leaked on the internet — now that Fuyumi was older, she knows now that it was a publicity stunt. The people, knowing Endeavor's shitty attitude, were suspicious and wanted to know why Endeavor had chosen that specific place to donate to and his agency told him that it would humanize him more in the eyes of the public if he brought his own children with him when he told them whatever bullshit he felt like saying.

Fuyumi's world stops and her grey eyes stop seeing what's in front of her.

She's eight again.

 _Fuyumi is eight and confused when Father bursts into her room at eight in the morning, sending her heart careening into her stomach and he tells her to dress like she's going to church on a Tuesday morning. The girl rolls out of bed onto shaky legs and does as she's told — always does as she's told, it's easier that way — before padding downstairs in quiet sock feet to sit up straight at the kitchen table so that Father would know she's done._

 _Touya comes down next, blue eyes downcast and looking just as confused as she feels. He sits next to her, his palms flat on the table to keep them from shaking. Father hasn't asked them all to do anything is a really, really long time. Touya looks tired, dark smudges lining his undereyes and his skin dull._

 _Fuyumi frowns, remembering that he spent the afternoon in the Red Room with Father getting hurt. Her gaze lowers to his covered arms, wrapped safely in a nice collared shirt, hiding what Fuyumi knows to be painful burns and bruises like they usually do. Her twin was always small and frail to her. He was older by three minutes, but she's always been bigger than him. Mama told her once because he was sickly as a baby and never really grew out of it, but Fuyumi knows better. She knows he's sickly because Father hurts him all the time and never lets him heal._

 _Mama told her never to repeat that never, ever again so she hasn't._

 _She wants to reach out and hold his hand like they used to before she was thrown away by Father and not allowed to see her other half, but she knows that Touya would get in trouble if Father saw her comforting him so she keeps her cold hands to herself because she loves him._

 _A couple minutes later, Natsuo comes down with his silver hair brushed out of his eyes for once. Fuyumi thinks he looks cute all dressed up— or he_ would _look cute if he wasn't so wary as he sat down. Five years old with shadows in his eyes. Her heart hurts for her otouto as he sits, his chubby legs swinging in the chair._

 _Finally, Father comes down holding a silent Shouto and walks out the front door without speaking and into the car waiting by the curb for them. The other three children scurry out after him, careful not to wrinkle their clothes as they hurry across the lawn. Fuyumi sends one look back towards the house, wondering where Mama is but sighs deeply. Mama is probably sick that day like she is most days. Some days she was okay and happy enough to talk to Fuyumi and her siblings. On super rare days, she would even smile or_ play _with them when Father was out of the house working. But most of the time she won't come out of her bedroom._

 _So today it was just the five of them._

 _Fuyumi tries to hide the shiver that threatens to wrack her thin frame._

 _For the entire eerily silent car-ride, Father had refused to tell them why or where they were going until a perky brunette explains it in his office in downtown Musutafu; they are here to show their dad support because some people think he's a bad hero and they wouldn't want that, would they? All four of them shake their heads mechanically and she continues, her demeanor not dimming in the slightest. All they had to do was talk nicely about their dad and their family if they were asked and just follow his lead if they didn't know what to do._

" _Easy enough, right, kids?" she asks, rising from the crouch she was in to be at their level._

 _Fuyumi is the only one who responds._

 _About an hour later, they are ushered into a large room into seats next to Endeavor while he speaks in his gruff baritone insincere words about how family was the most important thing to him and how much he loves his kids. Fuyumi thinks the smile on his face makes him look weird._

 _The reporters ate it up, even asking the children themselves a couple questions and cooing at their answers, specifically little Natsuo and Shouto. Fuyumi didn't speak much, giving relatively short answers when asked a with a plastic smile plastered to her face for long enough to make her cheeks hurt._

 _Everything was going fine until Father moves to ruffle Touya's hair affectionately after he answers a question with the right amount of precociousness to be cute and the boy flinches so violently that there's no way everyone didn't catch it. Her twin tries valiantly to play it off when asked, saying that it was him stopping a sneeze or coughing, but the fear in his eyes when he saw Father's hand coming at him couldn't be explained away. The way the rest of the children blanched immediately after seeing the twitch in his jaw couldn't be either. Before they even left downtown, rumors are circulating about Endeavor abusing his family, the only likely explanation for the children's almost robotic behavior during the press conference and terror after the incident._

 _Touya had trembles next to Fuyumi on the entire ride home, his face impassive but unnaturally pale. Natsuo and Shouto looked like he was about to cry. Fuyumi stares ahead out the mirror and tries to ignore the dread threatening to choke her._

 _The car stops and they all roll out of the car with varying levels of shakiness to their limbs. Touya's cool exterior has been chipped away and Fuyumi watches him start to break apart, his breaths coming in harshly as they walk up to the door, fear coming off of him in waves. Before the front door even finishes closing, Father is on, small, sickly Touya and she could only watch as her twin gets beaten down to the ground and burned within an inch of his life on the marble floors so badly that he peed himself, his screams echoing down the foyer loud enough that Fuyumi prayed for the first time in_ years _that the neighbors heard and were calling the police, that the landscaping guys working on the lawn outside would decide that enough was enough and come_ help _them, that their mother, wasting away in her room not even fifty meters away, would wake up and protect them._

 _Usually Touya didn't beg. He just took his beatings, cried if they were that bad, and kept it moving. Fuyumi watches her twin_ beg _for mercy, his voice hysterical and high enough to rip Fuyumi's heart into a million different pieces. Father's mouth is set in a firm line and his scowl deepens with Touya's pleading._

" _Pathetic."_

 _He starts back up again._

 _Fifteen minutes later, after Touya had thrown up on himself, Endeavor decided that enough was enough and rounded on Fuyumi, who was still rooted to the spot with silent tears streaming down her face._

 _It was her turn._

The taste of copper in her mouth brings her back out of her head, her vision slowly coming back to her and with it, a dull throbbing in her mouth from where she unconsciously bit the inside of her cheek. Lastly, she feels a hand on her back rubbing comforting circles and if not for her reflexes, she would've attacked the body attached to said hand with _extreme_ prejudice. But, she recognizes the sound of her twin's low voice reminding her of where she is before she can panic and the tension in her shoulders is released.

"We're in your bedroom on third of March. You're okay, you're safe, it's, like, eleven in the morning, uh, I'm your twin?" he tried, obviously trying to guide her back out of her flashback. "I'm not sure what else to say, the internet can only prepare me so much."

A shaky, strained laugh found its way out of her mouth and Touya heaves a great sigh of relief. He rises before she even realizes that she had fallen to her knees during her episode and hauls her up off the ground.

"Well, at least you stopped pacing," Touya says drily, forcing another chuckle from Fuyumi, his joke almost funny enough to detract from the fact that she's just had one of her worst attacks to date, and the first one in months. Fuyumi frowns. They usually weren't nearly that intense and didn't last that long. She wanted to believe that she was getting better, but it seemed like with all of the stress of the exam results, it was only making her anxiety _worse_ , bad enough to cause… whatever the heck _that_ was.

 _That's something to look into_.

Her gaze flitted to the window again and back to Touya who had settled back onto the couch lazily, all of his gangly limbs spread out on the cushions enough to be annoying.

 _Stupid Touya and his stupid long limbs._

Fuyumi would _never_ be as tall as Touya, a fact she was slowly becoming aware of. For the vast majority of their childhood, Fuyumi had been the taller twin — the _alpha_ , she remembered teasing Touya — and if she wasn't taller, they were exactly the same height. She huffs, fighting the urge to cross her arms petulantly. Now, since she'd put him on a modified diet to help stimulate muscle building and overall health, he'd shot up past her to just over a hundred-seventy-four centimeters in height, over ten centimeters taller than she was.

His growth-spurt made him much more of a butt than usual, but Fuyumi supposes that she kinda sorta deserved it for teasing him for being shorter than her for their childhood.

But it still didn't take away from the fact that he was a major butthole sometimes.

"Quick question, if you get out of the shower clean, how come your towel gets dir—"

"HE'S HERE!" she exclaims, her body going rigid as she gave a routine scan of the road. "Oh my god, he's he—" she pauses to look at Touya, absolute _terror_ evident on her face. " _The letters are here!_ "

Touya had been doing a great job faking indifference in the face of the results so far. He was outwardly unbothered by the little waiting game they had found themselves in, the calm to Fuyumi's storm for the past month, chill enough for most people to think he honestly didn't care one way or the other.

But when he saw the mail truck coming down the road, all of that flew out the window.

Both twins bolted, running like Endeavor himself was behind them. They took the stairs quickly, Touya skipping several steps at a time to Fuyumi's barely careful three, until Touya reaches the landing and just vaults over the rest of them until he hits the ground running down the foyer with Fuyumi hot on his heels.

Somehow, it's Fuyumi's hand that reaches the doorknob first as she borderline throws it open and darts across the well-kept lawn to reach the unsuspecting mailman standing by the curb about to open their mailbox. The brunet man looked up, his eyes widening when he saw two teenagers coming at him full speed with varying degrees of terror on their faces.

"Wait!" Touya yells as they slow down in front of him, halting the mans startled step backwards. "Do you have any—"

"Two letters from UA High," he smiled, offering the letters to them both with a flourish. It seems to Fuyumi that he's been doing this, giving out UA results, all day long. "Good luck, kids."

Touya takes them both and gives the man a nod of thanks.

Fuyumi peeks over his shoulder and her knees go weak when she sees the glossy envelope, fit with the official and unbroken UA High School seal holding it shut.

 _The moment of truth!_

They both race back into the house.

—

"Fuyumi, come on, we won't know unless we open them!" Touya presses, rocking on heels.

Fuyumi shakes her head from where she's curled up on the couch, her body in a tight ball as if to keep out the anxiety. "I can't, Touya! It's just," she looks up, her silver eyes watery behind her glasses. "What if they're _rejection_ letters?"

Touya shrugs a little bit too mechanically to be as nonchalant as he probably wants it to be. "We have to open it to find out."

Fuyumi huffs and sticks her head back into the cushion, letting out a muffled "No."

She hears Touya begin to pace and almost teases him for it like he did her but doesn't have it in her when her stomach is doing enough flips to make an Olympian gymnast jealous. "Well at least let me open them bo—"

"No!" Fuyumi launched up off of the couch, snatching the letter for herself. Touya smirked knowingly. She stares at the letter in her hands, her breath catching in her chest as her heartbeat stuttered. "I don't think I can—"

And the envelope was snatched out of her hands.

She looks up, letting out an indignant squawk and prepared to yell at Touya when she sees her younger brother shoot out of the room, two envelopes in his hand and cackling at the top of his lungs.

Touya and Fuyumi look at each other and take off after him, death threats, maniacal laughter, and three sets of footsteps echoing down the halls.

"Natsuo, you little _shit_ give us back the envelopes!" Touya thunders, a step behind a fuming Fuyumi, who was gaining on their little brother.

"No!" he shouts, wrenching open his bedroom door and shutting it a hair before his older sister can catch him and wring his scrawny little neck. "You two were taking forever," their twelve year old nuisance of a brother says from behind the thick, wooden door, the lock firmly in place.

" _I'll_ open it."

"No!" Fuyumi and Touya shout in unison.

"Natsuo, this isn't funny! Give us back the envelopes _now_!" Fuyumi hisses, banging on the door as hard as she could without damaging it. She is answered with nothing but the tearing of paper and laughter.

"Dear Yukimura Touya," Natsuo read, pitching his voice lower to what he believes to be the authoritative voice of a principal.

Touya bangs sharply on the door, his face paler than usual. "Come on, dipshit, this isn't fucking funny."

Natsuo sighs. "Hm. Not interesting," he says, not bothering to finish reading the letter before another tearing sound is heard and Touya's eyes widen.

"Well, what did it say? What did it say?" he demands, rigidity locking up his body enough that he couldn't even show off his displeasure on the door. " _Natsuo, I swear to fucking Christ—"_

"Dear Yukimura— why do you guys get to be Yukimura, I want to be a Yukimura too— Fuyumi…" he trails off again, ignorant to Fuyumi's heart leaping into her throat as she trembled all over.

 _If I don't die of a heart attack, I'm going to_ murder _Natsuo_.

They both wait with bated breath, willing Natsuo to speak until he huffs and the door unlocks, much to their collective surprise.

The white-haired preteen walks out of his bedroom and past his livid siblings, carelessly tossing the opened letter in their direction before Fuyumi could freeze the saliva in his mouth. "That was boring. Now I'm hungry."

Too impatient to bother retaliating against their little brat of a sibling, the twins fell on their letters with gusto, Fuyumi's trembling fingers holding the paper like it was a precious artefact.

 _Dear Yukimura Fuyumi,_ she read as she tried not to vomit onto her shoes, _as you well know, UA High School had many exceptional applicants this year. The sheer amount of potential that these prospective students have far outstrips any class the school has seen in the recent century._

It sounded suspiciously like a rejection letter and instead of getting discouraged, she pushed on and fell to her knees. _It is with great pleasure that I congratulate you on your acceptance into UA High School's Hero Course_ , _the most co…_

She stops reading after that, blinking slowly as she rereads that line, that one line over and over and over and over and _over_ again, unable to stop until she feels Touya's hand on her shoulder as he snatches the letter from her hands and skims it.

Fuyumi hardly even notices as the gravity of the situation settles in on her. _I got into UA._

 _On my own._

 _Without Endeavor's name or his influence._

"Fuyumi," Touya says blankly, his hands lowering. She finally finds the strength to look at her twin. "We got into UA."

A pause.

"WE GOT INTO UA!" Fuyumi screeches, throwing herself into Touya's arms as he whoops triumphantly, catching his twin in a shaking grip. "We GOT INTO— Touya! We did it, we d—"

He grins and crushes her into his embrace, the tight hug to the edge of uncomfortable and Fuyumi hugs him right back, laughing hysterically into his shirt. "HELL FUCKING YEAH WE DID!" he cheers, not caring at all about his volume.

She pulls away first, flapping her hands around her face as the biggest smile splits her face in two. "Holy crap we got in! I can't believe it we got in! I'm so ha—" her smile drops off her face and she stops moving all together. "What about Endeavor?" she asks slowly, her mood dampening a little.

Touya scoffs. "Fuck that guy. We're going to UA. It doesn't _matter_ what he thinks because he can't pull us out." He looks at her square in the eyes, gratitude and joy making his watery eyes look less and less like Endeavor's. "'Yumi, we did it."

Fuyumi grinned back fiercely. "Hell yeah we did."

Fuyumi wasn't very religious by any means. She remembers being much, much younger before her mother retreated into herself when she tried to instill in them her own religion by taking them to temples and celebrating her holidays and she remembers liking them, but it never really stuck. But, Fuyumi still found herself praying; not to any gods or deities, no, but to the cosmos.

It was a nightly ritual. Every night since she was six and scared until she was fifteen and triumphant, Fuyumi had wished and she had prayed to the stars. Fuyumi would stay up at night, staring out of her bedroom window at the stars, studying their far off bodies and wish: for a sign, guidance, more courage, peace of mind, anything to help her make it through the day with a monster running her family.

Some nights, like the one when her mother was taken away, she was shaking and crying silently, others, like when Touya had mastered thermoregulation, she was grinning and happy. But every night, whether it was clear, cloudy, raining, or snowing, she would sit on her bed with the window open and wish and pray for _something_.

There were moments where it felt like it wasn't worth it and that she was wasting her time when she could be sleeping, but her practice kept going: she'd brush her teeth, wash her face, pray to the stars, and go to sleep in that order every single night like clockwork and, honestly, it helped. It helped her feel like someone was listening to her pleas and that maybe, someone somewhere would help her make it happen.

After she'd decided she become a Pro Hero, the prayers increased in their intensity as she pleaded to the sky for more steel for her spine, light for her heart, and a fire for her soul to keep going when their training sessions seemed like they weren't going anywhere or when she could hear Shouto's whimpers when she was on that side of the compound and had no way of helping him, when everything seemed much too big and hopeless for such a small, insignificant girl like her.

But the funny thing about feeling small was that even the sun was small from a distance.

So every night she prayed and every morning she got up, trying to channel the sun into herself, using it to help her burn brighter, fighter harder, and do better. Fuyumi threw herself fearlessly into their training, never letting up and never giving in, even when the sun inside her threatened to burn out.

She began to use her fear, her anxiety to fuel the beast in her belly little by little until her punches were a little bit harder and her kicks were just a smidge quicker, her reflexes were better and her eyes were sharper, until her ice was colder and her heart was warmer.

Until made three points off a perfect score on the written portion of the exam.

Until she scored over a hundred total points on the practical.

Until she took down a three ton robot on her own and saved a boy's life.

Until she got into UA.

Fuyumi was a lot of things. One could say that she was an anxious, traumatised mess. Others might say that she's painfully polite and selfless to a fault. But Yukimura Fuyumi was not a quitter. Yukimura Fuyumi was not a coward, she was not weak, and she sure as hell wasn't a goddamned _failure_.

That day, on the third of March, light like nothing Fuyumi had ever felt coursed through her soul, making her heart lighter and her mind brighter, momentarily scaring off all of her demons. There was a lot to do within the next few years if Fuyumi wanted to achieve her goal, but she was more than ready to tackle it head-on. The fire in her soul burned brighter than ever as the beast taking up residence in her belly roared in approval.

So, she let Touya lift her up in a great, big bear hug and shake her around while he was overcome with joy like she was. She let herself feel her moment in the sun for as long as the day would last. But the moment that that ended, she had a lot of work to get done and not a lot of time to do it.

Cruel blue eyes flitted across her consciousness.

Her gaze sharpened.

A lot of work.

No, Fuyumi wasn't done. Far from it, actually. If she wanted to take down the Number Two Hero, she couldn't afford to be average or good or even exceptional like the principal's letter had said. She would have to be great and nothing less.

But she could live in this moment and bask in the victory. She sent up a thank you to the stars who had listened to her night after night and to the dreams that were answered. Fuyumi would celebrate for now.

But after that?

The Yukimura twins were coming to UA to become great heroes and God help anyone who tried to stand in their way.

 _UA High School, here we come!_

—

 **A/N: THE END!**

Don't kill me, there's going to be a second part (and maybe a third…) where they're actually in school (and can you guess who their home room teacher is going to be?) where more OCs will be present in the hero course, their martial arts classes, in UA as whole, and in the world in general. Again, I'm probably not going to be able to use every single OC just because of the sheer volume of entries I got both on and AO3 but be on the look out!

Oh yeah, and Endeavor's still a piece of shit. How he got away with beating his kids was that he has a "family physician" with a healing quirk come in and heal them when they get hurt really bad and the asshole gets paid enough to keep his mouth shut in case you were wondering.

I wrote Fuyumi with severe anxiety and PTSD. She's working through it the best she can given the circumstances and I love our ice queen.

Natsuo's a little preteen shit and we stan lmao.

Y'all can find me on tumblr mirukosbitch. Feel free to let me know how you thought the ending was!

The next part (because keep in mind, this is a series that I would like to continue, but I'm a busy college student so sorry that school comes first lmao) will be more of a drabble series, a bunch of scenes of their lives in school and less organized than this part. It'll be easier to maintain plus you guys can send me ideas through my asks on tumblr so do that and you'll probably see it. I have a couple ideas for what is going to happen next but not nearly as many as I would like so yeah.

There were two inspirations other than TLT Musical here, the first one was from a tumblr post that said "I feel small; but so are stars from a distance", a ten word poem that I _loved_ and had to put in and one from one of my favorite authors of all time (TEN POINTS TO ANYONE WHO CAN GUESS WHICH BOOK).

 _ **Thank you guys so so so much for supporting my fanfic as much as y'all did.**_ I'm honestly blown away by the amount of support this got it's honestly insane so thank you, thank you, thank you. You guys are the best and I hope you liked the fic. I will be back, I pinky swear it.

 **Shoutouts** : Everyone who made it this far into the Hoarfrost series. It's been quite a ride.

 **QoTP** : Send me ideas for their hero names! I'm pretty sure you can guess what the theme is gonna be, what with all of Fuyumi's space talk.

 _ **OH, AND HAPPY PRIDE MONTH FOR THE LGBTQ+ HOMIES I LOVE AND SUPPORT YOU.**_

Onto the next, guys, gals, and non-binary pals.

thanks :) 3


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